The Preserve at Jordan Lake (Chapel Hill, NC on 10/20/12)

Well it is my birthday weekend and I wanted to head out of town for some golf. Virginia has some decent courses but I played a couple courses in North Carolina on vacation in 2010 and really enjoyed the state. So my birthday was the perfect excuse for a quick road trip to the Tar Heel state. The Raleigh Duhram area made the most sense as it is about 3.5 hours. Originally I had thought about leaving Charlottesville on Friday after work and playing 36 holes on Saturday but ended up getting together with some folks from work on Friday night so I set the alarm early for Saturday and left about 7am. The first course that I played was The Preserve at Jordan Lake Golf Club in Chapel Hill, NC. It took me a little closer to 4 hours to get to the course as it is on the southwest side of town. I am not sure what it was about the day, but it was special. The leaves on the trees were changing color and the weather was perfect, about 70* and not a cloud in the sky. It turned out to be a really good day. On Sunday I got up early and headed over to The Neuse Golf Club. I booked my tee time here on Friday and the couple that I got paired with on Saturday said that they had played The Neuse multiple times and really liked it. The course itself was good but it had a few too many homes surrounding it for my liking. My tee time was at 8:08am and boy was it chilly when I teed off. It was probably about 40 degrees and it took a while for it to warm up because all the trees block the sun. It finally started to warm up when I only had a couple holes left. The advantage of the early time is that the pace of play typically is faster which turned out to be the case here as I finished up around noon and hit the road. The drive home was about 3 hours and 40 minutes with a stop for a birthday lunch at Five Guys. I am a sucker for a burger that is for sure. It was a good birthday weekend and I look forward to hopefully many more weekend trips to North Carolina as I really like the golf there.

The Preserve at Jordan Lake (Chapel Hill, NC):

I played here on 10/20/12 from the blue tees at 72.3/138/6612. The Preserve is located on the southwest side of the Raleigh Duram area and is in a natural setting. The main road that I took went over a large lake and that area looked like it would be a great outdoors area. The Preserve is a Davis Love III design that is in an upscale housing community. Because it is upscale the homes are set back from the course and not a big bother. I thought about it for a bit and I do not think that I have played a course that he has designed so I was excited to see what he had done. Right away the first hole paints a picture of what to expect for the day: elevation change, a forced carry, a multilevel green, and a couple semi blind shots. The course was not a mountain course and the elevation change throughout the course was one of its best design features. Many holes were framed well either uphill or downhill and by the surrounding trees. The elevation change also created many uneven lies in the fairways. This created an added difficulty when trying to get an approach close and really tested my ball striking. In addition, I thought the course played a little longer than the yardage listed because of the elevation change. About half of the holes required a forced carry, one of my least favorite design features, so this could be a problem for some golfers. The greens were a good test because there were different levels which required some thought from the fairway and firing at the flags all the time was not rewarded. The slopes allowed me to get creative and use them to get some shots close to the hole so some local knowledge could be a plus here. Once on the greens they were a challenge to putt on because of the big breaks. It seemed as the round went along the greens had more and more false fronts and fall offs which made chipping tough too as it seemed that all my chips had to be flighted into the face of a hill to get it close. The course also had some semi blind shots, nothing too ridiculous so it was tolerable. Hole #4 stood out as very picturesque with a small drop to the fairway and the left side was framed by a fairway bunker while #6 is a mid length par 3 that requires playing the tee shot over a large rock that could come into play (something not seen too commonly). On the back holes #12 and #13 were framed well with the elevation change and the trees. The course had more great holes than most courses, but I thought it also had some seriously flawed holes such as #16. Hole #16 is a long par 5 that has a downhill tee shot resulting a downhill lie and the next shot, a layup, is played up the hill and over a decent size hazard. I was faced with a hybrid or 3 wood from a downhill lie and the shot required a high shot to carry it as far up the hill as possible. I probably would have liked to see the tee shot end up in a flat lie for a better chance to carry the hazard. I feel that there were a few details missed when designing the course as this type thing occurred on a couple other holes. The maintenance was good considering the price of $38 that i found on golfnow. The course was wet, but other than that the fairways and tee boxes were in good shape. The greens were not lightning fast but rolled well. One thing I did notice was that there were patches of grass replaced around many greens, it looked like the course lost some grass during the summer heat. It was a good course and while I would not want to play here all the time it is definitely worth a play once if in the area.

#1: